Wave the Flag

March 6, 2013 10:15 AM

Is there any way for users to see which posts and comments have been flagged as 'Fantastic'? That would be nice.
posted by bq to Feature Requests at 10:15 AM (33 comments total)

That would be nice! We have favourites, of course, but they really aren't the same thing. I use favourites strictly as bookmarks, and flags for great content.
posted by orange swan at 10:17 AM on March 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nope, flagging is all admin-only, so there's no way to see fantastic flags. They're kind of a holdover from the time before we added public favorites, which serve the purpose better, and fantastic flags only get sporadic (very low uptake) use. Making them public would kind of double up the purpose of favorites and lead to some confusion about which one you should use and why, which is why we've never made them public.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:18 AM on March 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

There's no direct route, no, though it's fine to drop us a line if you have a specifici inquiry.

We have always kept flags strictly mod-side in terms of visibility, and while obviously fantastic flags are a different creature than the rest of 'em it'd still be a sort of inconsistently to introduce to the system at this point for what's not really a huge vector of information in the first place and for something that tends to correlate pretty directly to already-visible (and in their own way somewhat controversial specifically because of that visibility) favorites.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:18 AM on March 6, 2013

What exactly is the function of the fantastic flag?
posted by shakespeherian at 10:19 AM on March 6, 2013

What is my most fantastic-ed comment? Of anybody's comment of all time?

shakespeherian: "What exactly is the function of the fantastic flag?"

I always thought it was the bump to get into bestof.
posted by boo_radley at 10:24 AM on March 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'm opposed to this; it just turns Metafilter into some kind of competitive sport. If I cared about being bumped or having my ego stroked, I'd go to Reddit and fervently post there.
posted by Renoroc at 10:26 AM on March 6, 2013

It's one of the things that might catch our attention for bestof/sidebarring, yeah. It's a very-low-friction way of saying "hey, this is neat!"
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:26 AM on March 6, 2013

and as long as we're flag-talking, is "breaks the guidelines" the one to use for edit-window hijinx?
posted by boo_radley at 10:34 AM on March 6, 2013

Yeah, that's fine to use for that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:41 AM on March 6, 2013

What exactly is the function of the fantastic flag?

So the mods know which comments I wrote.
posted by phunniemee at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2013 [18 favorites]

Yeah, think of the fantastic flag as either:
-This is the kind of thing I would show to a friend who is not a member, to explain why this place is great.
or
-Hey mods, this is great - I want to be sure you see it even if it's too inside-baseball for me to show to nonmember friends.

More people should use the fantastic flag, yes yes.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:14 AM on March 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

I generally use the fantastic flag so that I don't feel bad when I tell someone I flagged their comment as fantastic.
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:18 AM on March 6, 2013

I mark things as "Fantastic" if I think it would make jessamyn laugh. Huh. Guess I never considered the other mods.
posted by ColdChef at 11:21 AM on March 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

Other mods?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:23 AM on March 6, 2013 [40 favorites]

"Fantastic" Post/Comment is ONLY to be used when the Post/Comment is riding a unicorn-griffin and is wearing the ice-armour of Gortharg Bloodblade son of Bufuffnor Snot-Pike daughter of Ukklop Damp-Sling and it carries the triple-studded mace of Thaarlap the Booger-Lord and rides unto the Nobgoblin army and does battle with Zuhurg, Thane of Morrobior and the sound of their silver-steel swordaxes crashing against their fireshields doth summon the dragocentaur Tumbowimmby the Vast, who breatheth flame upon them and of the little folk, only Zoggy the Demi-elvling didst crawl through the sewers of Puppwog to carry the archmagic anklet of XeXe to the dark-forge of Tumblegonk and the Glurg Zhosh of Clumff Fuggle didst Bligg Webble-Webble Quord Zingleplubb Snuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurd, in my understanding.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 11:25 AM on March 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

I flag posts as 'fantastic' because it's considered poor form to favorite one's own posts.
posted by mazola at 11:58 AM on March 6, 2013 [7 favorites]

There are no other mods. Pale imitations, ghosts, mere illusions, mirages.

Pardon me, I need to edit this comment...
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:00 PM on March 6, 2013

There is no excuse for flags.
posted by Decani at 12:11 PM on March 6, 2013

Pro tip: pretty much anything I post can be flagged as "other".
posted by arcticseal at 12:19 PM on March 6, 2013

I keep forgetting the fantastic flag is a thing, and then when I remember I feel bad for not using it more often.

Is there any way for the mods to tell who has flagged the most posts as fantastic? Because I really want to hug that person or send them a gift or wash their car or something as a thank you now.

The fantastic flag is a nice reminder that good people are out there, quietly making the world a better place for the rest of us.
posted by misha at 12:27 PM on March 6, 2013

So tempting to start flagging comments on this post as "fantastic"... must. not. press. button.
posted by yohko at 1:11 PM on March 6, 2013

I think the only time I've used the fantastic flag is when I've accidentally hit [!] instead of [+] , and figured , "eh, as long as I have the pull-down menu up already, why not"
posted by Fig at 1:16 PM on March 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I use it to flag neat things that I think would be worthy of the sidebar or the "Best Of" blog.

It would be cool to know what the most-fantastic'd comment and post of all time are, if that info is available.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 1:17 PM on March 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm curious, is there a way to tell the most highly fantastic'd comment to have been flagged on metafilter, or even better yet the top ten? Or does that information get destroyed when you 'clear' flags?
posted by Blasdelb at 4:12 PM on March 6, 2013

We don't get rid of flags, just hide them from our view, so it's all in principle calculable, though we don't have any specific tool for it. If pb is feeling bored and sassy there may be answers forthcoming, but I lack sufficient levels of either at the moment so I'm not gonna dig in right now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:22 PM on March 6, 2013

I bet this happens anyway. Cream rises 'cause cream is awesome.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:09 PM on March 6, 2013

Bored & Sassy is what I will name my hair care product line, should I ever develop one.
posted by phunniemee at 7:24 PM on March 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

The other flags absolutely need to be hidden from view. Nothing would be worse for cool-headed discussion than "noise," "derail" and "offensive/sexism/racism" flags visibly flying everywhere like it's a ref lockout football game.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:56 AM on March 7, 2013

I am starting to come around to the idea that this is a false memory, but I swear when I was a kid there was a brand of milk called "Young and Sassy." Google tells me I am very wrong. It is sad.
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:46 AM on March 7, 2013

While we're discussing flags, does anyone else think a vexillological flag would be good?
posted by TedW at 9:28 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I still want an asshat flag for comments that don't merit removal, but I find obnoxious. Or an anti-favorite. Someway to mark displeasure besides using my backarrow.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:37 PM on March 7, 2013

From personal experience I can recommend (a) furrowing your brow and/or (b) muttering half formed curses under your breath.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:00 PM on March 7, 2013

Other mods?

Is this jessamyn being mod-ist?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:01 AM on March 8, 2013